AITO M7 is officially launched - luxury SUV from Huawei

Huawei promised to unveil the AITO M7 today and it managed to avoid yet another delay - the large 6 seat SUV is officially now ready for its customers. First test drives will be offered from July 23 and deliveries will begin in August. There were a lot of people waiting for this car apparently and the company has confirmed it received over 10,000 orders in the first 2 hours.

There are three versions of the AITO M7 available - Comfort, Deluxe and Ultimate. The prices start at RMB 319,800 ($47,790) for the Comfort model, Deluxe starts at RMB 339,800 ($50,780) and the Ultimate starts at RMB 379,800 ($56,760). The M7 will compete with the Li Auto ONE (smaller sibling of Li Auto L9) which comes fully equipped with all options and is priced at RMB 349,000 ($52,150).

The AITO M7 is available for viewing at Huawei’s stores across China, the company hopes for between 20,000 and 30,000 units to be sold every month. The company has a manufacturing capacity of 50,000 units monthly but it is plagued by the supply chain issues that affect every other manufacturer in the world.

The SUV is a luxury vehicle with 6 seats in 3 rows. The second row comes with Zero Gravity Seats which unfold with a single press of a button to offer the most comfortable position for passengers. Company claims that by bringing knees and hips to the same level and ensuring the angle between thighs and torso is precisely at 113 degrees the blood circulation is improved. It is a tried and tested solution in the medical world and it is becoming a luxury trend in the automotive industry.

Sound system is provided by Huawei and it comes with 19 speakers in 7.1 surround sound setup and 1,000W of power. There is even an option to reproduce the sound outside the vehicle, effectively turning it into a giant boombox apparently good for suburban camping trips. People used to go camping to get away from the city noise but times are changing.

Infotainment is taken care of by a large center screen which controls all the functions since there are no physical buttons. Voice control is fairly sophisticated with continuous dialogue and interjection at any time. The system can recognize various dialects of the Chinese language (for now) and it has 4 zone accurate pickup - it can recognize which passenger is talking to it and it can ignore interference. On paper it sounds amazing but we reserve judgement until actual tests confirm it works as well as promised.

The infotainment is obviously using the Huawei Harmony OS and it can mirror any Huawei mobile onto the screen allowing full control of the phone and the vehicle at the same time. Video calls are handled from the main screen and the in-car camera can be used to shoot and share videos instantly. The smart assistant is called Xiaoyi and it can can do anything from updating the driver on road and traffic conditions to scheduling appointments, looking for parking services and even offering suggestions to improve health and safety.

Harmony OS is far more sophisticated though, as we found out in our AITO M5 review. Mirroring the phone is just the smallest of its tricks, it can control your entire smart house from the car - lights, locks, windows, robotic vacuum cleaners, heating and cooling.

Thanks to Harmony OS your smart watch can be the key for the car or you can use your smartphone. The car can be controlled from the phone or watch - you can check battery status, close or open windows, lock the doors or pre-condition the cabin. Whatever you could do in the past while sitting in the car - you can do it now remotely.

It wouldn’t be a family car without built-in karaoke, right? It comes with a wireless professional mic backed by DSP chip and ultra-low latency. If you forget where you parked the car - don’t worry. AITO M7 can accurately send you its location including what floor it’s on in a multistorey car park. The car of course can park itself even when there are no street markings.

The smart assistant, Xiaoyi can recognize when passengers are tired, it can put the middle seats into Zero Gravity position with voice command and then it will monitor the passenger’s sleep. It will monitor and adjust the interior temperature and control ambient noise as well to ensure passengers get a perfect nap.

AITO M7 is an EV with range extender, a very popular car category in China. It offers 230 km (142 miles) of pure electric driving and when the battery is running low, the built-in generator will kick in and charge it up. The combustion engine is not connected to the wheels at all, it purely acts as a generator pushing the combined range with full petrol tank and battery to 1,220 km (758 miles). Those figures are for the Comfort version of M7 and are offered by the CLTC standard, which is quite optimistic.

WLTC testing suggests 1,100 km of combined range and 195 km of pure electric driving. The Deluxe and Ultimate versions have 1,000 km and 165 km range respectively. Comfort edition has only one electric motor powering rear wheels with its 200kW (268hp) output. The Deluxe and Ultimate have two motors with combined power of 330kW (442hp) driving all four wheels. The difference is quite substantial with acceleration from 0 to 100kph taking a decent 7.8 seconds in the Comfort version but an outright impressive 4.8 seconds in the Deluxe and Ultimate.

Battery capacity is just 40kWh and the fuel tank has 60l capacity. That is a very interesting figure - it means that this 5 meter, 2.4 metric ton SUV can travel 1,000km on 60 liters of fuel. If the numbers do check out in real life testing it will be one of the most frugal ICE cars out there.

The range extender discussions will last for next few years, it’s a solution for places where EV charging infrastructure is non-existent. It’s got its own set of downsides, but it offers electric driving for customers who otherwise would have to carry on using either ICE vehicles or plug-in hybrids. Is it better than a hybrid option? Purely from an efficiency point of view - yes. The thermal efficiency of the range extender in the M7 reaches 41% which is higher than most ICEs even when operating at their optimal RPMs. As a result this large SUV uses as little fuel as the Prius which is half its size.

AITO M7 is no doubt a very luxurious SUV, it is full of technology and it offers a lot for the money - there is no argument. The petrol range extender can be a winner for some but it can be a definite no for others. With 10,000 orders in just 2 hours it seems Huawei and AITO have convinced enough people to turn the M7 into a runaway success.

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